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Inspired by conversations on the FOOD52 Hotline, we're sharing tips and tricks that make navigating all of our kitchens easier and more fun. Today, we walk you through the basics of bean cooking.

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We've all heard the same tips for cooking dried beans: you must soak your beans. You must refrain from salting them until at least half-way through their cooking time. Neglect to follow these directions and you'll be left with undigestible, tough-skinned disappointment. All of this pressure is enough to drive the most dedicated of home cooks to the canned foods aisle.

But don't go there -- cooking beans isn't as high-maintenance as it might seem. Today, we're walking you through the basics of bean cooking.

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First things first: the beans.

Quality ingredients will yield quality results; old, stale beans will result in tough skins and a lack of flavor. So choose your beans wisely. Buy from a store you know restocks frequently, or better yet, order some heirloom Rancho Gordo beans.

Once you've got your beans, be sure to pick through them and rinse them thoroughly. You don't want any pebbles in your Pasta e Fagioli.

To soak or not to soak?

Bean cooking is quite the divisive topic. As Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo explains, "It's like martini drinkers! They all insist their way is the best way!" Traditional wisdom tells us to soak beans overnight in order to reduce cooking time and increase digestibility. However, this means that if you want fresh beans on the table tonight, you need to start prepping them...yesterday.

Luckily for us, beans cooked without a pre-soak will turn out just fine. In fact, according to Russ Parsons of the LA Times, unsoaked beans yield a richer, more flavorful result. Soaking beans can actually draw nutrients and flavor out of the beans. So for reasons of taste and nutrition, throwing your dried beans in the pot may be your best bet.

A few words on salt:

If you choose to soak your beans, you'll want to add salt to the soaking water. The salt prevents magnesium and calcium from binding to -- and, subsequently hardening -- the cell walls. You have two options here. The first is to add about one teaspoon of salt for each pound of beans, and simply cook your beans in the soaking water. The second is to "brine" your beans, a la Cooks' Illustrated, with three tablespoons of salt for each gallon of water; just be sure to rinse your beans and change your water before cooking them.

If you don't choose to soak, feel free to add salt to your pot at the beginning with everything else. Adding salt will marginally toughen the skins, but not enough to make a difference when you use small quantities of salt.

Cooking:

The good news? Once you've made your decisions on whether or not to soak, cooking your beans is almost all hands-off. Cook your beans in a heavy-bottomed pot, with enough cold water to cover them by an inch. Add onions, garlic, a bay leaf, or a few sprigs of fresh herbs; the beauty of cooking your own beans lies in the ability to flavor them any way you wish. Bring everything to a boil for five to ten minutes, then reduce to a simmer; too much boiling will break the beans' skins. Check on them intermittently, and if you need to add some extra water, do so from a kettle, rather than the tap. Be sure not to stir them too much, lest they become mush.

Definitely don't:

This is important: do not add tomatoes or other highly acidic ingredients to your beans while they are cooking. High acidity will keep your beans from softening and likely result in your yelling at a pot of beans, which nobody wants. Just wait to add the tomatoes until later. Your beans will thank you.

The safety test:

When you think your beans are done, test at least five of them to ensure they are fully cooked. One soft outlier can mask a pot full of undercooked beans.

Digestion:

No article on beans is complete without at least a side note on digestion. There are two issues at play here: first, beans contain oligosaccharides, a type of sugar that our bodies are incapable of digesting alone. Soaking beans reduces these sugars, so if digestion is a big concern for you, give your beans a good soak before cooking. However, another way to break down oligosaccharides is to add a strip of kombu to your beans as they cook. This dried sea vegetable contains the enzyme needed to properly digest oligosaccharides. It will also add vitamins, minerals, and a hint of umami to your pot of beans.

The second reason that beans can cause discomfort is their high fiber content. If your diet is low in fiber, high-fiber foods will cause what Russ Parsons calls a "shock and awe affect": your body isn't used to such a high dose, and therefore, well, it's going to protest. So while we want you to embrace bean cooking with reckless abandon, try gradually increasing your daily intake rather than immediately following the advice of that childhood rhyme inviting you to eat beans at every meal.

Beans may not be a fruit, but they truly are magical. With just some salt and a pot of simmering water, you'll be left with an end result so delicious that you'll find yourself picking them out of the pot. They're incredibly easy once you discover your preferred method, and a big batch cooked up on a Sunday will find endless iterations throughout the week: smashed in burritos for lunch, simmered in soups for dinner, and pureed into a dip for easy entertaining. Now go throw a pot of beans on your stove.

I cook beans all the time and rarely pre-soak; however just as with grains, after simmering until tender, I always allow beans to rest. I turn off the heat and leave the pot covered for 15 to 45 minutes without peaking. Then I stir and reheat to a simmer. In this way, the beans have time to absorb more moisture and become creamier inside without being crushed by excessive simmering and stirring. Try it. I think you will find that this really is one secret to a good batch of beans.

I cook beans weekly in my slow cooker. No soaking or monitoring of any kind needed and get perfect beans every time. I do add 1/4 tsp baking soda when cooking garbanzo beans because they seem to be the most challenging. We love beans!

Really great article. A couple of words in favour of pre-soaking the beans. One school of thought is that pre-soaking actually begins the germination process, thus converting the sugars and giving the beans a different nutritional profile which makes it more digestible for many people. Think sprouts! To take advantage of this, the beans need exposure to oxygen during the soaking process. One can do this by changing the water or simply stirring the beans every few hours. Another advantage is that pre-soaked beans can cook much faster, cutting down on time and fuel costs, making beans even more affordable. Of course, sometimes one just needs to cook beans from dry. The kombu is a great tip and I can't believe I forgot it.

One piece pf advice for people living with very hard water..either use filtered water or use a 1/8-1/4 tsp baking soda. Even with soaking beans can have difficulty softening when the water is very hard. Also Rancho Gordo beans are wonderful!

I cooked my Eden Organic Black Beans in a slow cooker. Unsoaked , I put them in before I went to work and a quick check when I returned (and that's when I salted them) and let cook for another hour or so. The most delicious beans I have ever made.

Trampled, there are two common methods for soaking beans: 1) let sit in room temp/cold water 8 hours/overnight; or 2) bring to a boil, cover, and turn off the heat, and let sit for an hour. However you soak them, they'll need to be cooked, in fresh water, for 1-1 1/2 hours, depending on type of bean.

"Beans may not be a fruit..." Yes, they are. From the Mayo Clinic: "According to botanists (those who study plants) a fruit is the part of the plant that develops from a flower. It's also the section of the plant that contains the seeds. The other parts of plants are considered vegetables. These include the stems, leaves and roots — and even the flower bud. The following are technically fruits: avocado, beans, peapods, corn kernels, cucumbers, grains, nuts, olives peppers, pumpkin, squash, sunflower seeds and tomatoes. Vegetables include celery (stem), lettuce (leaves), cauliflower and broccoli (buds), and beets, carrots and potatoes (roots)." Please help stop the misconception that beans are not fruit.

Great info. I'm glad to read it. Though I wonder... The English language isn't always that accurate when classifying things like beans. From a botanical point of view, what you say makes absolute sense. However when we look at the food triangle that the government loves to teach, beans are considered a "meat and alternative" (at least in Canada). In the vernacular, many people differentiate between fruit (as sweet), vegis (as green/savoury/fresh) and pulses (as in dry beans). Maybe since this is a food site talking about both ingredients and 'foods', it's good to include several definitions to avoid this kind of equivocation.

I've been following directions I'd seen before for instead of overnight soaking, bringing them to a boil, covering the pot, and turning off the heat for an hour. Then you drain and rinse them and add fresh water to cook them for 1 1/2-2 hours. I'm very happy with this method.

there are lotsa articles on whether adding a "pinch" of baking soda during the cooking process 1) aids in digestibility or 2) helps the beans cook faster ... not sure about either, but i do find that adding an 1/8 tsp of baking soda (per pound) to black beans does help them stay blacker, i.e., helps prevent them from turning into "dark gray" beans.

From Indian cuisine, I "cook" any spices I add to my soups in a bit of oil, then add to the soup liquid. This prevents spices from tasting "raw". The spice/oil combination can simply be warmed in the microwave before adding--

If you eat beans once in a blue moon, I can see where the gas issue comes in. A big bowl of chili after a low-fiber diet is going to give you what we in the business call a "gift with purchase".
If you eat beans, know your source and they are fresh (less than 2 years), it really isn't an issue for most of us. I love Julia but really, I'd rather eat Diana Kennedy's beans than hers.

The esteemed Julia Child determined the best way to reduce the GI effects of beans... she called those effects the "rooti-toot-toots." She recommends soaking each pound of beans in at least six quarts of water for, at a minimum, overnight. Drain the beans next day and use your recipe of choice to cooks the beans. Use fresh water, NOT the soaking water. Mme. Child even addressed the assertion that "soaking actually draws nutrients and flavor out of the beans" Her advice: "eat a marginally larger helping of beans." What's not to like?.

My family eats a lot of beans, especially black beans, and we always use the crockpot to make them. I put a pound of black beans with some onion, unpeeled garlic cloves, salt, and bay leaves (and of course water) in the crockpot before going to bed and they turn out perfect every time. We eat them first thing in the morning with a dollop of sour cream or plain greek yogurt topped with shaved parm cheese for a delicious and filling breakfast.

I'm not a soaker because I'm a slacker.... I make beans (usually black) once a week and never soak them. I like to throw in 2 bay leaves and salt them once they've started to soften. My kids love black bean tacos but I just like them in a bowl with hot sauce.

re baking soda, I am not a good authority but I have heard it does something bad to the nutrition of beans and is really a last resort. Even a gives a taste. I would be happy to be corrected about the nutrition but I've heard it a few times.
Best to use good, fresh (less than 2 years old) beans!

I like to use my pressure cooker with beans.. a sure fire way of cooking them quickly.. I find Adding Bishops weed (ajwain) and a large black cardamom gives the beans a thymey smoky flavor. The Ajwain is supposed to take care of the 'bloatey' effects of beans.

You could Lightly toast it, crush it and add it to Foccacia with other spices.. Its a great ingredient for yielding a thyme flavor w/o worrying about the taste of burnt herbs. I add it in a powdered for to the potato filling for Aloo paratha or even while making potato patties for my son's school lunch. Traditional remedies: steep some whole ajwain with ginger in some boiling water, the tea is great for soothing colds & a stuffy nose

I was inspired by Tamar Adler's ode to beans in An Everlasting Meal. She recommends adding good olive oil as well as salt and veggies (onions, fennel, celery, etc) to a pot of beans. The tops of fennel have been particularly delicious additions to recent pots of black and cranberry beans. I use the slow cooker, on low, with great success.

I have to say as unfaithful as can be to any one method. Right now I love cooking in clay pots, low and slow, right on the gas, but I also love the crockpot and I have learned never to say never and I may join Jill, the Veggie Queen with a pressure cooker one day. As long as we're cooking, we're ahead of the pack!

Crock pots or big dutch ovens on low heat are a great way to cook beans. And, I am a huge fan of Rancho Gordo beans. I bought some home from a trip to CA and have never looked back! What are your thoughts on baking soda - is it needed? I know that it is recommended for chickpeas, but I assumed that it might be useful in regular pots of beans - just a Tsp or so per lb of beans. Thoughts?

Okay, here's another tip that occurred to me as I was making my lunch. (I get the best help from my right brain while I'm in the kitchen!) The best black beans I ever made, and I mean "ever," I cooked in a stock made with nothing but corn husks (not cobs) and half a yellow onion. The beans -- purchased at Markethall Produce (their heirlooms are all better tasting than Rancho Gordo, by the way) -- tasted so good, just as they were. I ate them plain! I have been busily making/freezing corn husk stock as corn season winds down here, to have plenty for the winter. Highly recommend that you try this. ;o)

I've only asked about the heirloom varieties I've bought, which I was told are sourced from the local company called Community Grains http://communitygrains... , which buys heirloom beans from a fifth-generation local farm, Mohr-Fry Ranches http://www.mohrfry.com/ . The black beans I used are not the heirloom variety that they sell, however. I know that many of their bulk items are SunRidge Farms, but I'm not 100% sure about the black beans, so I'll check the next time I'm there. I generally buy everything I can in bulk from The Food Mill, but Rockridge is a lot more convenient and MHP's produce is always beautiful, so I tend to go there more often. ;o)

I'm sure you're right about that. If you go to the home page of the Community Grains website, you'll see Oliveto there in their list of restaurant customers. And thanks for the tip on the polenta! Community Grains sources a lot of wheat products from seeds from Italy. ;o)

I find that if I cook beans without animal protein they are much easier to digest. It used to be when I cooked beans I was really cooking meat flavored with a few beans, now, I really am enjoying beans for beans sake by making them vegetarian. I started to find the beans creamier when they aren't drained if you do soak them and since I stopped draining them I also became a no soaker.

Fresh (as in not dried eons ago) beans don't need soaking, I've found. And I'm enjoying beans these days without meat, too. Good (especially heirloom) beans taste great on their own with just a few freshly picked herbs and with onions, which make everything taste better. ;o)

Antonia, I grew runner cannellini beans this year and they are the most amazing bean. They have a great mouthfeel and good starch content and are delicious. I also grew several other kinds this year too but I haven't shelled any of them yet.

I purchased them at seed savers in their beans for cooking store. They don't sell them as seed because they can't guareentee germinating rates for some reason. I bought a pound cooked 3/4's and ate them the planted the remainder. Every single bean I planted germinated. I am seed saving this year so, if you send me an address via my email I'll send you some

This is a great tip! I had already put in my gardening journal a note to plant runner beans next spring, as I read somewhere that they do particularly well in cooler weather, which of course is what we have in the (arctic) marine climate. I think I'll do what you did . . . order some to eat, and then save some. I had no idea that Seed Savers sells beans to eat! ;o)

I have suspected for some time that the bean/meat thing was a thing. Glad to hear someone else also harbors this suspicion.

I find that soaking/not-soaking to be varietal: black beans need no soaking, but chickpeas benefit enormously from at least a couple of hours. As a general rule bigger beans benefit from soaking, and the smaller beans don't seem to need it. However, their are exceptions, Dominican Reds cook up fine without a soak, and small red beans almost always turn to mush if not soaked first. Cannellinis and red kidneys seem to want soaking. Maybe it's just me, I usually stick to the thrifty Goyas.

Energy/time saving is also a serious consideration – if you haven't soaked the chickpeas, they may want nearly 3 hours on the heat! Yikes! Freezing is a great option – you always have some on hand for those times when you suddenly find your self needing beans and not having 3 hours of cooking time, or an overnight (most of the day is plenty!) soak.

I agree about cooking a lot of beans at one time and storing them in the freezer - marked and dated so that you know what you have.

I am surprised that you didn't mention the pressure cooker for cooking beans. I know that Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo is not a big fan of the pressure cooker but I cook many different types of Rancho Gordo beans quite successfully, and quickly, I might add, in the pressure cooker in less than 15 minutes if they have been presoaked.

I am in favor of presoaking for a number of reasons - one of them is that you save a lot of energy.

I like to add a piece of kombu seaweed when cooking beans. The minerals in it give the beans a good flavor and there is a through that it makes them more digestible. If you eat a lot of beans, you seem to digest them better. I am a big bean eater - as in almost daily.
I just stopped by Rancho Gordo yesterday and bought more beans. I can't wait to try them, quickly cooked in the pressure cooker.

Thanks for this post. Many people think that bean cooking requires a lot of skill but we know that it doesn't.

Glad to hear you enjoy using your pressure cooker. There are so many ways to cook beans -- in the pot, pressure cooker, and even slow cooker. What's nice is that once you find your preferred method, it almost becomes second nature.

Well, you've got the subject very well covered here. My only tip is, when you make beans, make lots of them! It's just as easy to cook a pound of beans as it is to cook a cup of them, and they freeze beautifully. A tip I picked up a few weeks ago, in a featured story linked from FOOD52 (cannot remember which one, as there have been so many), is to freeze cooked grains and beans in clear 16 ounce deli containers. I bought some (they come in bags of 25) and since then have been building up a nice inventory of all kinds of beans, lentils -- including spiced dals of various sorts -- and grains. ;o)

I buy them from a store called "Smart and Final" which provides supplies to small restaurants. The containers are sort of thin, but I find that they work perfectly. Of course, I don't microwave anything in them. (I just heat up a cup of water to near boiling, put it in a 4 cup Pyrex measure and let the container sit in it for a few minutes. That releases the contents easily; I then microwave in the Pyrex measuring cup. The deli containers work really well. They're a great size (even if they are round), they don't take up much space when stacked, and they're quite reasonably priced. And of course they're reusable! ;o)